An analysis of the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish media regarding Israel.

On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, an article by Ana Carbajosa was published by Spanish daily El País. Ana Carbajosa is El País' correspondent in Jerusalem, which is Israel's capital, though the newspaper she works for still denies this fact by intentionally indicating that Israel's capital city is Tel Aviv.

But now it's time to focus on the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish anti-Israeli media, and the aforementioned article will be used here as a good example of media bias against the Jewish State.

Firstly, the article is titled as follows: El ejército israelí mata a ocho palestinos, dos de ellos menores, en Gaza, i.e., Israeli army kills eight Palestinians, two of them being minors, in Gaza. And secondly, it's subtitled as follows: "Más de una veintena de palestinos, varios de ellos jóvenes, han resultado heridos durante el ataque a consecuencia de una serie de ataques perpetrados por el ejército", i.e., "More than twenty Palestinians, several of them being youths, have been injured during the attack as a consequence of a series of attacks perpetrated by the army".

Both the title and the subtitle deliberately omit Israel's main reason to attack: Palestinian attacks intentionally directed against Israeli civilians by launching rockets from the Gaza Strip. It's also deliberately omitted that among those killed there were three Palestinian terrorists who were firing from densely populated areas, a fact which could confirm Israel's claim of being attacked by them and the use of local non-combatants as human shields and civilian infrastructures as bases for their operations.

The Palestinian attacks against Israel, the dead terrorists and their tactics are mentioned within the main body of the article, but taking into account that the title is written in bold and in bigger letters and the subtitle is just under it, as well as they're the first part to be read, they claim the attention of the reader firstly and thus condition his or her perception of what has happened: a supposed Israeli attack against Palestinian civilians or at least without consideration for them.

Furthermore, the terms "terrorist", "terrorists" or "terrorism" are not used regarding the members of Palestinian terrorist groups or the groups themselves. The two Palestinian terrorist groups mentioned in this case are Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are referred to by their names or as "Palestinian armed groups" or simply "armed groups". Hamas is also referred to as an "Islamist movement".

The terrorists are referred to as "militiamen".

In order to avoid doubts about Israel's veiledly alleged vileness among the readers and to erase those facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims from their minds, it's told precisely in the last paragraph that Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, early in 2009, left 1,400 Palestinians dead.

Facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims regarding what really happened during the 2008-2009 Gaza War, such as statements by a spokesperson of Hamas admitting the use of human shields as well as confirming Israel's death toll of Palestinian terrorists killed (about 700, an estimation initially denied by Hamas), as well as the increasing of Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks against Israel in spite of the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, are not mentioned.

Finally, the picture shown next to the article shows a dead Palestinian child's body, which is claimed to have been "murdered" by an Israeli tank. Please notice that the verb "murder" is used referring to an intentional, premeditated and illegal killing, and in this case there is no evidence enough supporting such a claim; it seems to have happened rather the opposite, i.e., an unintentional, unpremeditated killing, whose legal consequences should affect the terrorists who fired from a densely populated area.

Meanwhile, not a single picture showing the intentionally sought adverse effects of the Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians is shown to El País' readers.

Is Antonio Gala an anti-Semite?

Antonio Gala is surely one of the most renowned Spanish writers, with works such as Petra regalada, Samarkanda or La pasión turca, among many others.

But he doesn't only write novels, poems or scripts, but also opinion articles to be published by Spanish daily El Mundo. And, as Libertad Digital reported on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, one of his last ideas consisted of using the human and national tragedy Japan is currently living to target Israel.

Gala explained in his article about what he calls the "human fleas" that "lessons such as the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan should teach them other kinds of behaviour: unity in the face of helplessness, generosity, (...). But they don't learn." And then he writes about Israel in this manner: "So we see Israel there, the most racist country, going back to Gaza after the fright."

This is not the first time he targets Israel or even the Jews. In an article published on February 5, 2009 by El Mundo, he explained that "the Jewish people will succumb again. Like it happened many times: pogroms, voluntary or unvoluntary ghettos, extermination, persecutions, expulsions,... From Egypt to Sepharad, from Canaan to Zion: all of them promised lands. Shouldn't they ask themselves why does always happen the same to them? Or is the rest of the world wrong?"

Spanish journalist David Gistau answered Gala through an article published on February 8, 2009 by El Mundo. He wrote that Gala's "reasoning makes Hitler an executor arm of a hate morally justified by a majority", as well as "we should ask Gala whether he would apply the same logic to (...) understand other persecutions (...). For example, those which were suffered by homosexuals."

Did Gala react to Gistau's argument by apologizing to the Jews? No, he didn't. On March 5, 2009, another article written by Gala was published by El Mundo. The Spanish writer explained about the Jews that: "Always the same: or persecuted or persecutors. Or both things at the same time."

I'll not insult anybody's intelligence by explicitly answering the question which serves as the title of this article since I think you can do it by yourselves easily.